The Pisces by Melissa Broder

source: free ARC via Amazon Vine
title: The Pisces
author: Melissa Broder (twitter)
published: May 1st 2018 by Hogarth Press
pages: 272
genre: fiction
first line: I was no longer lonely but I was.
rated:
4 1/2 out of 5 stars

blurb:
Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika’s home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety — not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound’s easy affection.

Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy’s understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn. A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.

my thoughts: I honestly don’t know where to begin.
The Pisces by Melissa Broder was one of the most intriguing and shockingly brazen books I have ever read.
I feel as though I have found a hidden gem. I found this one on AmazonVine and the cover and blurb intrigued me. This is one of those books that begs to be discussed, I’ve been thinking about it long after turning the final page.

There are elements of erotica, magical realism, mental illness and women’s issues woven into the plot. Author Melissa Broder is a poet and columnist and she does not hold back, her writing is straightforward, shocking and poetic all at once. This is a story about love and loss and addiction. And sex with a mer-man. Is he real? Is he an illusion? Who knows. I still don’t know. I think he is a metaphor for addiction. Only Lucy ever sees him, only she knows he exists. I was shocked while reading. Often. And then I also felt creeped out and then also sad. I laughed out loud at times as well.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

source: free ARC via the publisher
title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
author: Neil Gaiman
genre: fantasy
pages: 181
published: June 18th 2013
first line: I wore a black suit and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult.
rated: 5 out of 5 stars

blurb:
Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

my thoughts:
Reading a Neil Gaiman is like having a magical experience. The imagery he creates and the feelings he evokes while I am reading his stories are what draw me in. He writes beautifully and he makes you almost believe that the fantasy he creates could be reality.

Crescendo by Amy Weiss

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source: Free review copy via Amazon Vine
title: Crescendo
author: Amy Weiss (Twitter)
published: Hay House, Inc. May 2, 2017
pages: 208
genre: fiction/magical realism
first line: Once upon a time-
rated: 5 out of 5 stars amazing

blurb:
“Til death do us part,” Aria and her husband swore. But death came much too soon.

When tragedy strikes one summer night, everything is taken from Aria: her family, her future. Desperate to find meaning in life after loss, she and her beloved mare leave their home in search of something—anything. It feels like the end of her life. It is the beginning.

If she can find her way through the forest of grief, she will discover an incredible adventure waiting on the other side. Hers is no ordinary journey—it is a journey into the nature of the soul. Each step takes her further into uncharted lands. The cave of darkness. The lake of time. The human heart. Each place she goes and each person she meets has a new lesson to teach her, and soon she comes to learn the most astounding one of all: her loved ones have never left her. They are with her throughout the lifetimes. They are eternal and immortal.

And so is she.

And so are we.

My thoughts:
I finished reading Crescendo last week and I am still thinking about it.
This is a beautifully told story about life, loss, grief and love. It is a small world because years ago I read Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives by Brian Weiss, who I found out is Amy Weiss’ father. If you haven’t read Many Lives, Many Masters I recommend it also, it is an incredible true story about past life experiences and reincarnation. Anyway, I’m digressing here a bit. Crescendo also revolves around the idea of past lives. Isn’t the cover pretty? It matches the story perfectly. As I was taking that picture, my dog Huey photo bombed it, top left. He has perfect timing.

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

source: free review copy via AmazonVine
title: The Marriage of Opposites
auhtor: Alice Hoffman
genre: Magical Realism
pages: 365
published: Simon and Schuster (August 4, 2015)
first line: I always left my window open at night, despite the warnings I’d been given.
rated: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Blurb:
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things: a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro—the Father of Impressionism.

Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel’s mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel’s salvation is their maid Adelle’s belief in her strengths, and her deep, life-long friendship with Jestine, Adelle’s daughter. But Rachel’s life is not her own. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father’s business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Frédérick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family, including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.

Building on the triumphs of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, set in a world of almost unimaginable beauty, The Marriage of Opposites showcases the beloved, bestselling Alice Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. Once forgotten to history, the marriage of Rachel and Frédérick is a story that is as unforgettable as it is remarkable.

My thoughts:
After having read several of her books, I am a fan of Alice Hoffman’s. She has penned gems like Practical Magic and The Ice Queen, that became instant favorites when I read them. Then again, I wasn’t too crazy about Incantation and while Here on Earth had an engrossing storyline and was inspired by Brone’s Wuthering Heights but I really disliked the main characters.
I was curious to see what I would find upon reading The Marriage of Opposites.